


The End’s What You Make It

by geckoholic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Porn, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Gore, Rescue Missions, Reunion Sex, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-07 19:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15226425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: He and Keith kiss for long minutes at the airport, drawing a few looks from passersby, and then Shiro waves goodbye to him as he pulls his carry-on with him on the way to the check-in, turning around several times to wave back. Only five days, Shiro tells himself. He'll be home again in only five days.On the way back from the airport, where Keith boarded a plane to attend a conference in New York, Shiro gets stuck in the blooming outbreak of the Zombie apocalypse. The virus spreads fast, and Shiro and Keith's journey back to each other won't be easy.





	1. the outbreak: Shiro

**Author's Note:**

> Sheith and zombies... of course I couldn't walk past that during claims. ;) Written for art and based on an idea by midori250. And the art is truly gorgeous! Find it [HERE](http://midori250.tumblr.com/post/175716527865/one-of-my-art-pieces-for-chp-1-of-the-ends-what) and [HERE](http://midori250.tumblr.com/post/175755561970/no-one-ever-taught-keith-how-to-fight-but-hes#notes), and please make sure to check it out and swoon at the artist. 
> 
> Beta-read by starship captain. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "The Future Is Now" by The Offspring.

**THE OUTBREAK: SHIRO**

 

Shiro wakes first, like he does most days, the warm weight of Keith's body resting at his side. It should be stifling, in this weather, hot skin on hot skin, but he loves the sensation. Loves the trust it displays, the closeness, especially from someone like Keith who's usually guarded and hesitant to let go and feel safe. Getting this far took some time, and Shiro savors it, even if it makes the summer heat that much worse.

He presses a kiss to Keith's forehead and draws him in closer still, burying his nose in Keith's messy hair, and Keith stirs against him. The slow drag of his eyelids as he tries to blink is adorable, looks as if they weighed a ton. “Is it morning already?”

“Afraid so,” Shiro says, and apprehension settles in his belly. He knows it's ridiculous – Keith will be gone for a long weekend, that's all, on Wednesday he'll be back here in L.A. and won't have to leave again for another couple of weeks. Conferences and traveling are part of Keith's new job. They both knew that when he took it, and Shiro encouraged him to do so.

Keith heaves a sigh and snuggles closer. “I wish you could be there with me.”

“Me too.” He tried, as well, to take the time off work. Not a chance, though, with the big government contract for the new vaccine distribution system coming up. He's in charge of the logistics on that one, and he worked had to get that position. “But don’t worry, you’ll be great. You know the project inside out.”

“You’re biased,” Keith mumbles into his collarbone, and Shiro can hear the fond smile in his voice.

“Hmm maybe.” Shiro shifts so he can take hold of Keith's chin, lift it up, and look him in the eye. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though.”

“Shiro,” Keith says, and he draws the word out like it's something precious, like it's melting on his tongue. It makes desire buzz down Shiro's spine, but a quick look to the bedside clock tells him they won't have time for that, their alarm will ring in a few minutes, and he'll be damned if he takes any part in making Keith miss his plane. They actually agreed it's Shiro's job to assure he _won't_ be late, will have more than enough time to check in and board, and not be stressed about it.

Because of that, and only because of that, Shiro leans in for a quick, chaste kiss, and then shoves Keith away, decisively. “And we’ll celebrate when you get home. Come on, time to get up, have a shower, and finish packing.”

Keith opens his mouth like he wants to protest the last part, but Shiro cocks his head, giving him a knowing look, and instead, Keith pouts. “Fine, fine.”

He sits up, stretching his arms over his head with a hearty yawn, and Shiro wraps himself around him from behind and nuzzles at his neck, just for a few seconds, just because, before he climbs off the bed, taking Keith's hand as he goes, and drags him along into the bathroom. Keith squeaks in protest, but he follows, muttering and rubbing his eyes the whole way and it's so endearing that Shiro wants to keep him in his arms and never let him go.

But they both have jobs to do, and there'll be plenty of time for that – for indulging other, much less innocent urges, too – when Keith's back.

 

***

 

The whole way to the airport, Keith keeps reciting the main points of his pitch: how safe and cheap his drones are, how useful to first responders, how many lives they could help save. Shiro wants to burst with pride. He already knows he'll hunt the speech down on Youtube tomorrow evening and moon over how smart and beautiful and convincing and charming his fiance is. Keith would argue about at least half of these – maybe all of them – and that just makes Shiro even more fond of him.

He barely listens to the news on the radio, some panicky and likely overstated report about an epidemic spreading out of San Diego. Due to work, he heard a lot about incubation circles, how long most infections take to take hold in a host body while they spread, how that's what makes them so insidious, and an epidemic that has people falling down on the spot, as it seem the reporter is implying, seems like a blown-up hoax. He'll talk to Matt about it later, just in case. The last thing he catches of the report is screeching and crying, which is when he huffs with disdain. Milking the reactions of the sick's loved ones like that is abhorrent, and he turns the whole thing off.

He and Keith kiss for long minutes at the airport, drawing a few looks from passersby, and then Shiro waves goodbye to him as he pulls his carry-on with him on the way to the check-in, turning around several times to wave back. Only five days, Shiro tells himself. He'll be home again in only five days. Shiro stares after him until he turns a corner and disappears from view. He runs a hand down his face, fighting a sense of unease and dread. He'll feel better once Keith messaged him to confirm that he's landed safely in New York. He's overprotective, that's all, and might be suffering from a slight case of separation anxiety.

He gets back to his car and heads to work. The distraction will be good. Maybe he'll head in on Saturday too, and for a few hours on Sunday, for something to do. It sure won't hurt to jump ahead of schedule.

 

***

 

To his surprise, the lights are already on in the lab. Shiro slides his key card through the lock on the door and pokes his head in, smiling when Dr. Holt greets him, looking a bit disheveled. He's the medical director of the project, working on the designs together with his son to make sure the vaccines will be treated with sufficient care and get the safe storing they need.

“Good morning,” he says, and Dr. Holt smiles back, returns the greeting with a nod. “What brings you here at this early hour?”

Dr. Holt rakes a hand through his hair, which doesn't help with the disarray it's already in. “Katie has an internship with the NYU. We dropped her off at the airport this morning.”

“Really?” Shiro shakes his head, chuckles at the coincidence. “I came directly here from the airport, too. Keith has a conference in New York this weekend.” He looks around. “Matt already with you as well?”

The bark of laughter Dr. Holt gives in return is answer enough. “Of course not. I don't expect him until noon. He merely stuck his head out of his room for a minute to grumble about all the commotion so early in the morning.”

Sounds about right. Matt knows his shit, and he's far from lazy, but he's rather... nocturnal. Like someone else Shiro knows, if Shiro would let him. He smiles at the thought, even as the uneasy feeling from earlier washes through him again. Longing, he tells himself. It's just longing.

“I'll go get to work,” he tells Dr. Holt, waving his goodbye for now, and Dr. Holt waves back.

 

***

 

By the time Shiro decides to finish up and head home, have dinner, call Keith, and go to bed early, it's almost dark out. He got lost in his work, more so knowing there's nothing – or no one – important waiting for him tonight: the casing for the distribution system's trunk is still a bit unstable, and the last thing they need is for the trunk to pop open at the slightest disturbance. They're supposed to withstand heavy environments, storms, floods, long transport, while keeping the vaccine in optimal condition.

The roads leading out of the city center are, as always, hopelessly jammed. Shiro puts the AC on high and waits, driver's side window rolled down, watching as the city lights turn on one by one, ready to illuminate the streets nearly as brightly as the sun did during the day. He likes L.A., likes the heat, the business, the sea of people. He grew up in a small desert town in the area, and L.A. has always been the dream. Well. That, and working in science, finding ways to make the world just a little bit better.

There's a commotion up ahead, marked by honking and more than one driver yelling and gesticulating through their open side windows. Shiro looks up, and oh, yeah. The traffic lights jumped to green, but someone further down the line missed them, has yet to continue on his way. He doesn't see the point in yelling obscenities, but he joins in on the honking, hoping to help tear that drive out of whatever day dream he got lost in.

He sucks in a sharp breath when the car before him goes into reverse gear, almost scraping the front of Shiro's car. Shiro curses, narrowing his eyes as he watches the car make a sharp turn into the opposite traffic, and inevitably causing a crash; there's no more room on the opposite lane than there is on this one. He's about to get out of his car, phone in and to call in the police and an ambulance if it seems necessary, and jumps back into his seat, pulling the car door closed again, when another car reverses back in an attempt to seize the gap between the two lanes.

Shiro's head is going a mile a minute. He lets out a breath, peering through the front window, and frowns at the sight in front of him: more cars are trying to turn around on the head of a pin, and several drivers have gotten out, hectically trying to make their way off the road on foot. A group of people is heading in his direction, heedless of the traffic around them, and they seem... off, somehow. Their movements are sluggish, slow, and oddly crooked. He's rather sure he hears them growl, and a strange smell permeates the air, somehow rotten, like roadkill left out in the sun too long.

He dials 911, and throws his phone on the passenger seat, startled, when he finds the line busy. This isn't an isolated incident, then. This is happening all over the city.

The screams of the people on the road ahead of him remind him of the report he half-listened to earlier, and he turns the radio back on. He isn't surprised to find that it still seems to be nonstop news; he should have paid better attention earlier. A reporter is currently flying over the scene in San Diego, and what he describes sounds like a more progressed version of the events here: abandoned cars in the street, people running, screaming, getting overpowered by these... creatures. They switch to reports from here in L. A., from Phoenix and Las Vegas.

It's not just all over the city. It's spreading out past the damn _state_.

Shiro's heart is beating in his throat. He wants to laugh, hysterical – he's working on a system to reduce the spread epidemics and outbreaks, and now he's stuck in the middle one. He's glad he just sent Keith off across the country; maybe they can at least stop things from progressing that far. He might be safe, up in New York.

Or he might have one of these creatures on the plane and will be dead, or infected, by the time the plane touches down.

Shiro forcefully bans that thought from his head. _No._ Keith will be safe.

He weighs his options. He can't stay out here in the open. He's about twenty-five minutes from home, even in good traffic, and less than ten minutes from the office. Just across the street, there's a shortcut that he's used once or twice when Keith and him stayed in bed a little too long, in their early days, unable to keep their hands off each other. Back alleys, and not strictly legal to use, but he doubts anyone would write him up for that now. He looks around for a gap in the chaos, and accelerates just as soon as he sees the chance.

For the next ten minutes, he doesn't look left or right, concentrates on little else than the road directly ahead of him. Once in the office parking lot, he grabs his suitcase and phone, key card held ready, and sprints to the door. Inside, he takes a minute to dial Keith's number, tries not to think of the worst when there's no answer. Keith might still be at the conference, phone put on mute, or left behind in his hotel room. He's fine. He _has_ to be fine.

Shiro takes a deep breath and calls up the elevator to the lab. Even if Dr. Holt might have gone home hours ago, never late to dinner with Colleen, at least Matt will surely still be working.

 

***

 

Shiro comes from a military background, but during his training for this project he learned a whole lot of sinister terms for epidemics. He not only learned about incubation times, he also learned the math that goes into predicting how many people could get infected after any given time frame. There are ways to calculate the total loss of human lives in the worst case scenarios for every disease.

None of that ever factored in that people might turn literal _seconds_ after a bite from an infected person. The media starts throwing the term _zombie_ around within the hour. Before midnight, the mobile networks are down, overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of calls. That means Shiro can't keep trying to call Keith, and it's both a blessing and a curse to be stripped of the means to dial the same number every five minutes. Matt has been doing the same with Katie and with his parents' landline, and he's also been coming up empty. So they sit there, alternating between peering out the window, watching people riot in the streets, watching smoke and fire on the horizon, and following the newscast on TV.

Whenever he's got time, between being worried and being afraid, Shiro wonders how the world can go to shit so thoroughly in such a short time frame. And maybe it's not even that bad; maybe this is all an exaggeration. It'll last a few days, and then everything will go back to normal. This is a large city, and it's possible the riots here aren't even a blip on the horizon in the smaller towns nearby.

No. He's always been the dreamer in their relationship, but he doesn't need Keith here to tell him that he's kidding himself.

“I'm going to get some work done,” he announces, standing up, and sends a quick glance to the newest horror shown on the small TV in the office kitchenette.

Matt gapes at him in disbelief. “Now? You're gonna work _now_?”

“What else should I do?” Shiro counters. “I can't go home, I can't sleep, might as well do something useful.”

This is literally the kind of situation they designed the distribution system for. He's got more reason to work on it than ever before. Matt eyes him, scratching his head, and then gives him firm nod. “Yeah. Yeah, right. I should get back to work too. I still haven't figured the right core temperature for aerial distribution.”

Shiro gives him as much of an encouraging smile as he can summon right now, and then leaves him to it. There are a few new simulations for the trunk to withstand, theoretically, that he just now gained real life inspiration for. Waterproof, temperature proof, shockproof, and giving off absolutely no sound so as not to gather the attention of the undead. The latter isn't a challenge he ever thought he'd have to factor in one day.

 

***

 

At some point early in the morning, Shiro must have fallen asleep, because he jolts awake to the sound of his cell phone’s ringtone. For a few blissful seconds, he’s near certain that the caller must be Keith and he fumbles to answer, relieved and excited. Then the reality of the situation comes crashing down around him, at the same time as he sees the unknown caller message on the screen, and he knows it’s not Keith. Civilian communication is probably still offline. This is a priority call, connected through other channels.

“Takashi Shirogane,” he answers, his body almost tensing into a salute on instinct.

“We’re calling in reservists,” Iverson tells him without taking the time for pleasantries. “You have an hour to show up at your old base. After that, we’ll start collecting.”

He should have seen that coming. Expected it. Maybe he did, just… not so soon. Refusal will only lead to more trouble, and yet the part of him that was a civilian for the last five years and rejects authority on mere principle can’t help but make a joke. “Maybe I’ll wait for the collecting, then, Sir. Sounds safer than heading out in my own car.”

Iverson sighs, and Shiro can picture him, scratching his beard and looking unimpressed. “Get your ass over here, Shirogane. And make sure it’s in one piece.”

He hangs up, and Shiro stands, pocketing his phone. Getting all the way to the base out in the desert without being torn to pieces might be easier said than done, but this isn’t just about duty. Shiro thinks about Sam and Coleen, who haven’t answered their phone calls. Thinks about his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Flores, seventy years old and feeding all the stray cats in the area because she’s got a soft heart for animals, if not for people. Those are the people who will be waiting for help, for police or the army. Help that might never come if those are understaffed and busy collecting their own deserters before they can offer assistance to the public.

He makes a quick sweep of the kitchen, collecting a few steak knives, and then gets the baseball bats from the common room that he and Matt sometimes use to play in the backyard during lunch break. Well. Provided Matt is already _in_ during lunch break.

Matt raises an eyebrow when he sees Shiro approach. “I heard your phone, did Keith – “

“My old base called,” Shiro says. “They’re ordering in reservists.”

“Fuck no.” Matt shoots up from the office chair he was lazily spinning around on. “You can’t go out there. That’s suicide.”

“Someone’s gotta,” Shiro says. He can’t make himself meet Matt’s eyes.

“But why _you_?” Matt replies, sounding petulant. “No. Please. Imagine Keith gets home and you’re gone. What am I supposed to tell him, huh? That I just let you run off?”

“That those of us with the skill and strength to do so have to help those of us who can’t help themselves.” Shiro smiles. “I’ll be fine.”

Matt stares back at him, is expression somewhere between disbelief and respect, understanding. They’re all here, underpaid, working on a less-than-prestigious project on tight funding in the hopes the result might help save lives in the future. He gets it, Shiro knows he does.

Running a hand down his face, Matt whirls around to dig through a drawer by the desk. He sends papers and parts flying until he seems to have found what he was looking for and holds out a small object in the palm of his hand. It looks like…

“That’s one of the tracker prototypes for the distribution system.” Shiro stares at the tracker, then back at Matt.

Matt nods. “Yes. It is. Take it. I’m not losing sight of anyone else I care about.”

Shiro swallows around a lump in his throat, unable to say anything to that, but he takes the tracker and attaches it to the inside of his shirt, well-hidden from a cursory body checks. There likely won’t be time for anything else. He can smuggle this in, and keep it, he’s reasonably sure. Then he holds out one of the baseball bats in return and sets it down, leaning against the desk. “Here. Just in case. But promise me you’ll seal yourself into the virus lab if you hear _anything_ suspicious. Got it? Don’t take any chances.”

They nod at each other awkwardly by the way of goodbye, and then Shiro’s heading for the elevator.

 

***

 

For the first couple blocks, the streets are almost deserted, the high-octane panic from yesterday replaced with an eerie silence. Shiro feels like he’s driving through the eye of a storm, waiting to be dropped back into the fray. His biggest obstacles are a few abandoned cars and lifeless lumps covered in torn, blood-soaked clothing that he does his best to ignore. He has to run over a few of those creatures – the word _zombie_ hasn’t yet clicked in his mind – once he hits the interstate, and then it’s back to quiet, empty streets until he reaches the base. There, he settles into the rough familiarity of military processes, all last names and numbers, yes or no or stern salutes, and tries to turn is brain off altogether until it’s needed again.

He receives his uniform and protective gear, and waits in the mess hall. It holds fewer people than he expected, maybe two dozen. He avoids theorizing about why the numbers are so low, how many already went out and didn’t come back, how many deserted, how many never got the call at all, already dead or wandering the streets as numb and mindless creatures. It also means there wouldn’t have been any collecting; at this point, no-shows will probably be assumed to have died on the way. They simply don’t have the manpower.

Everyone’s heads whip around when Iverson walks into the mess hall, stack of papers in hand, clearing his throat. “Between us and the local police, we don’t have enough personnel left to answer all incoming calls. You’ll form two-people-teams and each team will get a list of addresses to work their way through. Any survivors will be evacuated by helicopters. This way, we hope to cover as much ground as possible, us working from the outskirts into the city, the police working outward from the city center.” A few murmurs break into the silence as he rustles his papers, but the room dips back into apprehensive silence when he speaks again. “I’ll sort you into your teams now, and give you your assignments. Thank you for everyone who came, and keep each other safe out there. I want to see all of you again when this is over, understood?”

That earns him solemn nods all around, and a few of the men even manage a smile in spite of the unfavorable odds.

 

***

 

Shiro’s partner is a woman named Ashley, taciturn and rigorously focused, who left active service a mere nine months ago. She still wears military stoicism like she was born to it, flat-out ignoring Shiro’s every attempt to break the ice, but she’s good, quick and effective. Eventually he falls into step beside her; once upon a time they wouldn’t have been so different. They clear the first few addresses on their list with no survivors – no one who’s left there is still human. It’s sobering, and serves to drive home the magnitude of what’s happening. Still, Shiro hopes against hope that it’s a local event, that Keith will be safe on the other end of the country, biting his nails while he's plastered to the TV in a hotel room, worried but far, far out of harm’s way.

Their third address is an apartment complex, about thirty units on four floors, and Shiro exchanges a glance with Ashley as they survey the building from the outside. Lots of people in a relatively small space, narrow hallways, an elevator, multiple exits and entry points, almost impossible to secure with only the two of them. This is going to be their baptism of fire. If they don’t manage to work hand in hand in there, they won’t make it back out.

They find the elevator already disabled, a handwritten note on it that's dated three weeks ago – small mercies, one less thing to worry about. The sweep of the first floor leaves them with five survivors, a young couple and a mother with two teenage children, and even though it'll make their job harder from here on out, protecting them, it lifts Shiro's spirits. Saving people, instead of just counting the dead. That's why he followed Iverson's call.

It's relatively easy to split up for canvasing the apartments: one of them clears the limit space, the other stays behind with the survivors. The real challenge are the stairs. Creatures could be coming out of every direction, up or down, they don't know what to expect whenever they reach the door to the next floor, and while they're between floors their only hope of an escape is to come back the way they came and pray the route is still clear.

At least the two teens are much more accessible to Shiro's sense of humor. He can hear Ashley tut at him from the front, but what does she know, if it helps ease their mood as well as his own, relieve some of the tension they're all under, he considers that a good thing. They're called Shauna and Cassandra, he quickly finds out, and they like dirty jokes best. That gets him a glare from their mother, too, but she doesn't say anything – they all have bigger problems right now, and anyway, what with trying to escape the thread of actual, real life zombies. A few saucy punchlines don't seem to matter so much, compared to that.

The second floor is a total loss, all apartments either empty or filled with creatures. In the middle of the hallway, they find a dropped handbag, and Shiro can picture how it went down: one person bitten out on the street, who then hurried home, and neighbors either trying to help or being curious about the strange noises outside. Ignorance might have saved them. As it is, none of them made it.

Their little group grows by two young men and a woman in her fifties on the third floor. The hallway on the fourth floor is teeming with creatures.

Ashley throws the door from the staircase shut again the second she's taken a peek into the hallway. She looks to Shiro, nods to the door, then to her gun, and shakes her head. Not worth it. They'd waste too much ammunition. Agreeing to her assessment makes his heart ache – there could still be _someone_ alive in these apartments – and he might have argued if they had been alone, but with the civilians they're escorting... Saving their lives takes priority. Maybe they can come back up here once their charges are safely in the helicopter.

“Alright,” he says, trying to keep his voice level. “We're going to walk back down to the ground level now. Try to keep calm and stay quiet just a little bit longer. A heli will come to pick you guys up outside in a few minutes. Okay? It'll be fine. You almost made it.”

He motions for them to follow him and takes the lead as they descend back down the stairs. From behind him, he hears Ashley relay the change in plan back to base, and they're almost at the door to the second floor when there's a screech above them. Shiro's blood turns to ice. That's sound of metal bending and cracking under too much weight. That's the sound of the door to the fourth floor giving way.

Ashley, in the rear, walks a few steps back up so she can peer around the staircase, and Shiro watches the horror unfold on her face in slow motion. “Run!” she shouts, bouncing back around on the balls of her feet. “Oh fuck, fuck, _run_!”

The creatures aren't particularly fast or well-coordinated, but, it turns out, in a staircase they don't _need_ to be. They tumble over each other, gravity transporting them downward more quickly than their own legs could anymore. Halfway down the last flight of stairs Shiro stops, letting their charge and Ashley run past him, and stars picking he creatures off as they come, making himself a wall between them and the people he's here to save. He waits until he hears the front door open and close, and then falls into a run himself to join them outside, mind already jumping ahead to think about ways to barricade the doors long enough so they can all get clear.

He's taking the last couple stairs two at a time, and he's too late to skid to a halt when one of the creatures lands right at his feet with a dull thud. He stumbles, falls, toppling down on top of it. The thing must have broken every single bone in its body, after a fall like that, but it can still _bite_. It can still scratch, fingernails raking through the skin above his nose with unnatural strength and determination. He veers around on instinct, blindly stabs at the creature with the knife from his thigh holster until it stops moving, until it stops giving those nasal growls. Only then does he tear of his armor and jacket in order to examine the wound on his arm, see the bite with his own eyes. Time stops and he gets lost in the shock, the world outside and the horde of zombies upstairs miles away. The noise of the helicopter breaks him out of it, if barely, reminds him that a bite might be bad news but staying here means certain death. It's his lower arm. Maybe they could... but he'll have to get out of here first. 

Shiro barely notices the sting on his arm, the blood hot on his face, as he struggles to his feet and runs to the door, pressing his whole weight against it once it falls closed behind him.

The helicopter is already taking off again. Ashley smiles at him, curt and thin-lipped but there, although the expression is quickly replaced by a look of horror as her gaze falls to his arm, to the clear bite mark just below his elbow.

Shiro bashes the back of his head against the sturdy wooden doors, once, twice, and then turns to meet Ashley's eyes and face the inevitable.


	2. two years later: Keith

**TWO YEARS LATER: KEITH**

 

He would never admit it, bitched about it plenty while he was stuck there, but the one thing Keith actually misses about New York is the cold. He was born in Texas and should be used to the heat, sure. In a world two years past Z-day, though, without enough power to keep ACs or even fans going, and after a literal trek across the entire continent, he learned to miss and appreciate some good, teeth-clatter-inducing cold. He remembers it fondly. Very, very fondly.

Plus, the waste and the decay that lingers in every building these days, big or small, is so much worse in the unrelenting, sweltering heat.

But the small abandoned gas station is the first shop they came across in days, and they've got to take that chance. Keith winds a ragged piece of cloth around his head, covering his nose and mouth and kept just for that purpose, and pushes the door open. Behind him, Lance does the same, and scoffs at the first whiff from inside.

Fucking hell, but he's right. It _stinks_.

The store is a mess, and Keith's hope to find anything worthwhile in here dwindles further. From the looks of it, it's already been ransacked more than once, and unless their predecessors were blind or cursed with particularly sensitive noses, out as quickly as they came in, there'll be nothing left.

He kneels to dig through the remains of a shelf that held breakfast foods in its heyday. Old cereal crunches under his foot, mixed in with dirt and brown leaves and gone green from mold. He pokes at a pile of sandwich bread, to see if there's anything hidden behind it, and coughs from the rising dust. 

Lance shouts his name, and Keith stands back up, looking for the source of his voice, and spots him underneath a sign with an arrow pointing left and informing customers that toilets are out back and the keys are given out at the counter.

“Good news,” Lance chirps, and Keith still hasn't decided whether he admires or hates his ability to find the upside in everything and run with it as far as it might take him. “Running water in the restroom.”

And well, that _is_ good news, admittedly. It's not food, but as Keith learned back in his High School biology class, one dies from thirst much quicker than one dies from hunger, and they were running low. He nods at Lance and walks back to the door, poking his head out, and waves at Pidge at Hunk, who had been tasked with cracking the gas pumps in order to feed the decrepit pickup truck they happened upon a couple hundred miles back. Judging from the animated conversation they're having over the pickup's closed hood right now, they're either already done, or they failed.

“Bring the water canisters,” he says, and waves at them again, more urgently. Even with his head out of the stores, it still stinks bad, and he might throw up at some point in the not so distant future. Bad smells are even harder to bear on an empty stomach, he's found out. “We have running water.”

Hunk gives him a thumbs up, and both he and Pidge climb onto the truck bed to get the canisters.

 

***

 

Keith's heart migrates to his throat when they hit Santa Ana. They avoid the freeway – too many abandoned cars, only feasible on foot – instead weaving through the suburbs, and it's all so familiar, and yet all so different, that Keith wants to scream. He's letting Hunk drive for this stretch, having anticipated that it'd have some impact on him, but... they're nearly there. There's nothing he wanted more for the two years since the outbreak than come back here and look for Shiro where he last saw him. Being home is a double-edged sword, however; up until now, he had a set goal. He knew where he was going to go. And he still does, for a little while longer. Their house, Shiro's work, a few friends' places, the army base in the desert. He knows that Shiro was registered with army a few days after the initial outbreak, and he knows he never checked into a refugee center. Those are his clues. Beyond that... well he'll start thinking about a new plan once he exhausted that list.

Beside him, Pidge shifts. She's folded against his side, peering out at the familiar landscape the same way he's doing, and he can sense the the same nervous energy from her. She's looking for three people, and they all know the statistical likelihood of finding at least one of them dead. The knowledge has been hovering over her head all this time, and the excitable, nerdy girl Keith knew from before, she's not gone, but she matured. Hardened. She's determined and stoic and pragmatic, in some ways better prepared for whatever they'll find than Keith is, and yet again he's grateful they've at least got each other. No matter what happens, they can deal with it together.

Picturesque family homes drift past as they approach the city, the dried up lawns and overgrown gardens marking them all as empty. Their owners might have died here, got turned here, or left for one of the centers. He doesn't think many of the suburban families would have stuck it out; children to protect and all that, and also, those houses are a nightmare to secure for the long haul.

Out of the two years since he left L.A. and the world went to hell in a handbasket, Keith has spent eighteen months on the long trek from New York to California, and weighing his options like that has become second nature, appraising every building for its usefulness as a potential hideout for the night. The first six months, he was stuck in refugee camps and centers, processed and boxed in, even though all he wanted from day one was to find Shiro.

Their surroundings change yet again, from abandoned suburban bliss to the storefronts and skyscrapers and offices buildings in the city center. Keith sits on his hands; almost there.

They pass by the main police station, and Pidge leans forward, tapping Hunk's shoulder and then pointing out of the window. “Look. Please stop here for a moment.”

Keith peers out of the window himself, to see what caught her attention: a giant wall of photos, lined with dried and rotten flowers, weather-beaten stuffed toys, and other memorabilia.

Pidge reaches for her baseball bat and exits the car, striding towards the wall before anyone's able to stop her. Not like anyone would have tried; they know her better than that. Keith follows with his hand around the knife tucked away in his jacket. Hunk and Lance stay behind, and Keith is glad for it.

The wall is huge, thousands of names and photos, some of them reminiscent of a missing persons ad on milk boxes, others more like obituaries. Keith doesn't know how long they're looking, parsing each photo for a familiar face, and his breath gets caught in his throat when he sees the map of the stars that used to hang over the couch in their living room. When he was little, Shiro told him once, he wanted to be an astronaut. The map was Keith's gift to him for their first anniversary. Keith could have picked out of hundreds of similar maps. He waves for Pidge's attention, grabs her hand as soon as she's within reach.

There's a handwritten note stuck to the map, kept safe underneath the glass of the frame, and Keith blinks at it, has to read it twice because it refuses to make sense to him. _Keith. I hope you're safe in New York, that you made a new life up there. If you didn't, if you came back to find me, then please, turn around. Don't look for me. I love you, and I always will, and but you won't like what you see. You deserve better._ It's signed with Shiro's name, and dated about a year ago.

Keith can't breathe. He's worried. He's pissed. He's glad to know that Shiro made it past the first few days – made it for at least _a year_ – and at the same time he wants to find him more than ever just to punch him for warning Keith away. You won't like what you see? You deserve better? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Underneath Shiro's note, there's a letter addressed to _Katie Holt, the best little sister in the whole wide world_ , pinned with a thumbtack and tucked away in a clear plastic folder that has seen better days. Pidge pulls it off the wall with shaking hands and reads, her eyes welling with tears. She doesn't tell Keith what's in the letter, and Keith doesn't ask. She folds it away after reading and glances back to the truck, shoulders straight, jaw set.

“We'll find them,” she says. “They're alive and we'll find them.

Then she marches towards the truck, ahead of Keith, and doesn't say anything else until they've both climbed back inside.

“Where do you want to go first?” Hunk asks, and Keith briefly panics. Home? He's not sure he'll be able to take that, and Shiro would have been smarter than to try and stay there. The base got taken out of commission when the centers started opening, and it's his last resort. He... he doesn't know.

Pidge sits up and answers in his stead. “The lab. It was designed to withstand a virus outbreak. That would have made it their best bet, and makes it our best bet too.”

“Yeah,” Keith adds, swallowing hard. “She's right.”

Hunk nods, and Lance starts giving him directions. He spent his holidays with his aunt and four cousins in Glendale as child, and so he knows his way around the L.A., too. Finding his cousins is why he joined them, and he did, in a center near the border to Arizona. Keith is more grateful than he could ever express with words that he stuck it out with him and Pidge anyway. That they both did. Hunk knows his family is alive and well – Samoa, like many small islands, closed down fast when the outbreak hit and saved itself – and they could have run, could have turned around and headed to the next center so many times. But they didn't. Road trips should be stuck out until the very end, Lance had said, or they aren't worth making in the first place.

 

***

 

The research building used to have high security, but without working power all their fancy electric doors and alarms cave to brute force like most things do these days. Between the three of them and a fallen tree misused as a battering ram, the fancy glass front gives eventually. The lack of zombies in the vicinity isn't a good sign; they smell living humans like a hyena smells corpses, and they would have tried to get in if they'd sensed any in there. But the lab was constructed to be airtight in an emergency, and... they could have made it. They could be hiding upstairs.

As they cross the light-flooded entrance hall, Keith matches his steps up to Pidge. He playfully nudges her shoulder, an attempt to lighten the mood for both of them. “What did Matt write in his letter?”

Pidge inhales, her steps slowing for a few seconds, faltering, then speeding back up. “That my parents are dead. Their street was overrun with zombies on day one, and I shouldn't look there.”

Well. That backfired spectacularly.

“Shit,” Keith says, coming to a halt and also stopping her with a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “I'm so sorry. Why didn't you say anything, I would have – “

“What?” Pidge whirls around on him. “Held me while I cried? I don't fucking want to cry. I want to find my brother, the only family I have left now, and go someplace save. Maybe then I'll break down and cry. Maybe then. But not yet. This isn't the time.”

She rolls her shoulder, dislodging his grip, and strides past him. Keith stays rooted to the spot, and stares dumbly at Hunk as he runs to catch up with her, mouthing a question as he passes by. _What the hell did you say to her?_

He thinks about the frightened girl he found in one of the centers in New York, waiting in a crowd together for news from California, both of them so overwhelmed to see a familiar face that they practically ran into each other's arms. She would have wept, fallen to her knees and cried until she'd ran out of tears, if she'd found out then and there that her parents were gone. The young woman that spent months battling impossible odds to find her family won't, can't show that emotion, and Keith wonders whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe something in between. Either way, it's done – Katie became Pidge, the name shed because it hurt too much to think about her family calling her that, she told him, and it's an irreversible transformation.

Keith just wipes a few quiet tears from his eyes and starts walking again. He knew the Holts from a few invitations back and forth, from hanging out in the lab when Shiro did overtime and Keith did not and he got bored. He knows and loves Pidge, now, and he knew – knows, he _knows_ Matt a little. The loss he feels must just be a faint echo of her grief, however, and she's right. Now's not the time, and besides, if she can put it aside then he doesn't have any right to cry, even on her behalf, and certainly not in her stead.

He lets Lance pass him as well, returning the little smile and shoulder shrug he's given, and gives the entrance hall a last once-over before he trails after them all to the stairs. They make the trek up three stories of stairs in silence, still undisturbed by unwanted visitors, and Keith finds himself once again holding his breath when they step from the staircase into the corridor leading to the lab.

It's not like he expects Shiro to round the corner and haul him into his arms. He long since ceased to hope for easy solutions and an quick happy ending. But hope is a clever, treacherous thing, and usually chased by bitter disappointment.

The lab is dark and in disarray, looking like it has either been ransacked – unlikely, since the doors downstairs were still intact – or left in a hurry. The door was left ajar, folders are scattered on the floor, flanked by the leftovers of disassembled tech, and a bookshelf has been thrown over. Keith picks up one of the folders and skims through the loose pages it contains. The handwriting is near intelligible, written so quickly it's hardly recognizable as Shiro's cursive script, but Keith is _sure_ that he wrote this. The notes are broken up by date and time every few pages and...

The latest date in this folder is from roundabout eight months ago. They were here. They were here, all this time.

“Pidge,” he says, voice cracking on the last syllable. He says her name again, a little louder, and she turns from where she was bent over her brother's workstation.

She runs over, one eyebrow hefted in question, and he shoves the folder at her, points at the date on the page. He doesn't trust his voice anymore, his throat too dry, as if he's been wandering through a desert for weeks. Months. Years. Maybe forever.

She smiles at him and opens her hand, presenting him with a small technical device in return. Keith stares at her, unsure what he's seeing. Numbers blink on a display, alternating between green and red like a broken traffic light, and from the reverent way Pidge holds it out in her palm, it might as well be the holy grail.

“It's a receiver,” she explains before Keith gets a chance to ask. “Matt is carrying the corresponding tracker. We just need to follow the coordinates.”

 

***

They're looking up at the cabin from the foot of the mountain. From the outside, it seems tiny, curled into the side of the steep stone wall, and it looks ramshackle and forgotten like it hasn't seen much traffic since the days of the pilgrims. Okay, that's an exaggeration; it's part of a mining colony that features neatly parked trucks and large pipes made of metal that definitely look modern. Well, modern-ish. Maybe not recent, but at least twentieth century.

Keith gives the cabin another dubious glance, then turns to Pidge. “You sure that thing's working right?”

Her huff in reply is the kind that means she very much isn't sure, but blusters twice as much to pretend the opposite. “Of course I am. They're here... somewhere.”

“We could just.” Hunk waves at the cabin. “Knock?”

Lance snorts next to him. “Yeah. Good idea. But not too hard, or the whole thing is gonna fall down on our heads.”

A joke, but it might not be so far off; the cabin is overgrown by trees and weeds, the paint on the door and windows is chipping, and the wood has a greenish, rotten hue in places that doesn't inspire confidence in its resilience either.

But there's no way in hell Keith is going to leave without at least having a look, and he knows the same goes for Pidge. “You two can stay here and think positive thoughts or some shit,” he says, locking eyes with Pidge, who gives him a small nod. “We're going to check it out.”

Hunk and Lance exchange a glance of their own, but then both shrug.

“Came this far with you,” Lance announces, grinning with false confidence. “Might as well follow your dumb asses the rest of the way.”

It's a steep hike up to the cabin, and even though it takes maybe ten or fifteen minutes, they're all panting in exhaustion by the time they reach the narrow pathway that leads from a mountain spur to the patio of the cabin. Pidge's tracker still insists they're on the right track, and so Keith marches ahead of her, straight to the door, and knocks.

At first, nothing happens, and bitter disappointment gathers in Keith's belly like molten lead. Then he catches something out of the corner of his eye, a pinprick of light near the door, a movement, a low whir...

He waves for Pidge, then points. “There's a camera. Someone's watching.”

She opens her mouth for a reply, and then shrieks in alarm when the heavy wooden door springs open. Blindly rushing backwards, she tugs at Keith's sleeve, who shouts Lance's and Hunk's names, and together they break into a run back up the pathway. Their chances will be better in open terrain, less like mice in a maze.

Except Hunk doesn't quite manage to keep up with the rest of them, and he stumbles halfway there. Lance and Keith skitter to a halt; Pidge is too far ahead to have heard, and Keith's glad for it, hopes runs all the way to safety before she notices.

A useless hope, of course.

Everything happens at once. Pidge turns around mid-run, losing her balance in the process and sliding towards the edge. Hunk struggles to his feet, but screams in pain once he tries to put weight on his left foot. Their attacker catches up with them, a tall figure dressed in an ominous hooded coat, a scarf wrapped around his head, his face almost entirely obstructed. Instinct dictates Keith's reaction: he shouts at Lance, who's a few meters ahead of him, to save Pidge, and he himself whirls around to help Hunk.

No one ever taught Keith how to fight, but he's learned a few things on the road. Mostly he fights dirty; he pulls a knife from his belt and launches himself at their attacker's back, wraps his legs around the other's thighs and twists, causing them both to tumble to the ground, and he uses his opponent's surprised disorientation to make sure he comes out on top, straddling the others hips. He quickly yanks the hoodie down and rips the scarf from around the other's face. He raises his knife with both hands, ready to defend himself if need be.

And then he lowers it, choking on a sob.

“Keith,” says the man beneath him, and he's both familiar and incomprehensibly alien. But the voice is the same. The eyes are the same. The way Keith's name sounds on his lips is the same. “Wait.”

His skin is deathly pale and seems almost translucent, the veins underneath visible in places. His jet black hair, once kept in an undercut, is long enough that he bound it into a bun at the back of his neck, and it's marred by a broad wide streak down the front – the color a zombie's hair turns after they reached a certain level of decay.

“Shiro?” Keith whispers, letting the knife clatter into the dirt. “What _happened_ to you?”

“Super long story,” another voice that Keith vaguely recognizes says from behind them. Matt. That's Matt Holt. “And best explained inside.”

Keith turns to the sight of Pidge, looking disheveled but smiling wider than Keith's ever seen her, and holding her brother's hand so tight the bones must be grinding together painfully. They look so much alike that Keith didn't even have to have seen Matt before in order to know that they're related. Out of the corner of his eye, distant, he sees Lance help Hunk into a standing position, and yet he feels like everyone's looking at him, gauging his reaction.

Not everyone, though. The only one looking up at him with nervous trepidation is Shiro, and Keith climbs off him with shaking hands, on unsteady legs.

Shiro takes his hand, and Keith clutches it for dear life, but he can't speak yet. Can't ask anything. Can't answer every questions he's asked in return.

He found Shiro. Pidge found Matt. And... it's just so much to wrap his mind around.

 

***

 

The day doesn’t get any less overwhelming from there. Shiro and Matt lead them into the cabin, and from the cabin into an elevator that lands them into an underground lab.

Keith entertains the notion that he got hit on the head on their hike to the cabin and this is all a dream. It seems too otherworldly to be real. These things happen to other people, not to him. Then again, he’d never thought that he’d go on a cross-country trip across the entire continental US in order to find his boyfriend in the midst of the zombie apocalypse, so maybe this shouldn’t be so shocking after all.

The sign in the entrance hall says _Altean Medical_ , and Keith doesn’t think he ever heard the name before. He wouldn’t have, unless he’d regularly bought one of their products; not his area of expertise. The facility seems quiet, most of it only lit by blue-red emergency lights, and the first few workstations and labs they pass are dark and unoccupied.

That picture changes when they reach the back of the facility. Brightly lit and filed with folders and half-built prototypes, the last three labs are undoubtedly in use. Matt marches ahead to a figure hidden behind a milk-glass door, and he emerges with a young woman about Keith’s own age and an older man, his carrot-red hair and beard threaded through with the first hints of gray.

The woman smiles and extends her hand. “Hello. I’m so pleased to meet you. My name is Allura. This company belonged to my father before the outbreak.” She doesn’t have to say when and how she lost him; these days, that’s implied by the lack of explanation, a generally agreed upon blank space, always leading to the same conclusion. With a slight, polite bow, she turns and indicates the older man by her side. “This is Coran. He used to be my father’s right hand.”

Coran mock-salutes at them, prompting an eye-roll from Shiro. It looks like a running gag, a practiced exchange, and it’s weird to see Shiro so familiar with someone Keith never met before, didn’t even know existed until now. They lost so much time. Tears prickle at the back of Keith’s eyelids, but he holds them back.

“I’m Keith,” he says, shaking hands, and steps back so the Pidge, Hunk and Lance can make their introductions.

After that, they’re led to one of the labs – judging from the unkempt state of it, probably Matt’s, and sure enough, he’s the one who steps forward and clears his throat, launching into a speech about how they’ve combined the company’s research and their distribution system, how they filtered out and might be just one lightbulb moment away from developing a vaccine. It all sounds very important, even groundbreaking, but Keith zones out two sentences into the science babble. He’s at full capacity. His head is spinning. He feels a bit nauseous.

He startles when Shiro reaches for his hand, twines their fingers together. “Hey.”

His voice is low and gentle, the tone he used a million times to dig Keith out of his spiraling thoughts. He might look different, but it’s still _Shiro_. Keith doesn’t doubt that. He just… he’d know, if Shiro would have changed so much as to be unrecognizable. A different person. Not the man he loves anymore.

Keith takes a deep breath and meets his gaze. “Hey.”

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me,” Shiro whispers, and Keith smiles, shaking his head.

“No,” he whispers back. “Not right now. But later, yeah? I’ll ask them all later.”

Shiro nods and squeezes his hand.

 

***

 

In addition to lunch rations – packed in plastic bags and so full of chemical preservatives they taste like they’re entirely artificial, meant to last for a decade without spoiling – the facility has a small garden. Special neon tubes imitate sunlight, the fertilizer used to grow vegetables and fruits stems from the facility’s own sanitary system, but the results are impressive. They even have a cow – named Kaltenecker, and Lance’s new best friend within a day, much to Hunk’s amusement – and a few chickens. For the first time in months, Keith can _cook_ , and afterwards he’s be able to go to sleep knowing that the next meal isn’t an uncertain question mark.

Better yet, he gets to fall asleep next to _Shiro_ , who still gathers him in just as they’re both drifting off, and he wakes up in a loose embrace, their legs tangled, Shiro’s warm breath tickling his skin every morning.

It’s heaven. It’s more than he dared hope for, all this time on the road, and for the first couple of days he just soaks it in, shoving away all worries and questions and thoughts about the future. The idea that Matt, Allura and Coran are working on a cure, that Matt and Shiro might actually find a way to test and administer is, seems surreal. Keith wonders, sometimes, if anything like normal life will even still be possible, up there, or if they just lost too much as a society. Perhaps they’ll have to start anew, build another civilization from zero.

He’s sitting at the desk in Shiro’s quarters – _their quarters_ – bent over a bowl of vegetable stew, leftovers from the day before, when the door chimes and Shiro enters. He looks exhausted, lost in thought, but his face lights up as soon as he spots Keith. And Keith can relate; whenever they’re not in the same room, in each other’s sight, it still feels like a dream, unreal and fragile. They’re not used to the other’s presence anymore, and it might take a while until they wrapped their heads around it, learned to trust it again.

“Coran finished another version of the serum today,” he says, sounding tentatively hopeful. “He infected a couple of mice. We'll test it in the morning.”

Keith sets down his spoon, pushing the half-full bowl away, and spins around on his chair in an attempt to conjure up the appropriate excitement. “That’s great news.”

Shiro’s smile grows lopsided, amused and fond and so familiar Keith feels like he might burst with love and relief. “I know it all sounds theoretical right now, and it’s hard to get pumped for that. But it’s good to work on _something_ , you know? And see progress made.”

He walks over to the bed, ruffling Keith’s hair on the way to which Keith gives an indignant squeak, and toes off his boots. The vest and shirt he wears in the lab go next, and the light from the overhead lamp gleams off his arm. They haven’t really talked about that yet: the loss of Shiro’s arm, the prosthesis he was given when he came here, the staved-off infection.

The letter he left for Keith, with the picture at the police station. Keith’s chest seizes at the thought.

“Why didn’t you want me to find you?” he asks, the question leaving his lips before he can swallow it down, like he did several other times over the last few days.

Shiro’s posture stiffens, hand stilling on the button of his pants. He raises the prosthetic arm and rests it in his lap, fingers flexing. “I thought that would have been self-explanatory, now that you’ve seen me.”

Keith huffs. “No. It isn’t. Didn’t you trust me? Did you think I wouldn't love you like this?” He nods at the prosthetic. “I don’t care about that, or that you look different. I care about _you_.”

“I know,” Shiro replies, his voice low and quiet. “But you deserve better. You deserve someone who’s whole. We can’t even predict the long-term effects of the unfinished infection.” With a grimace, as if he’s disgusted by his own body, he gestures at his face and chest, the pale skin, the blueish-red blood vessels visible underneath. “These, for example, only appeared a year ago. I might still turn, a few years down the line, or I’ll become contagious and if we never figure out that vaccine – “

“So what?” Keith interrupts him, temper raising his tone into the neighborhood of a shout. He sighs, clears his throat. “And until then we’re together. We’re living in the fucking zombie apocalypse, Shiro. No one knows what’s gonna happen in a week, let alone in a few years.”

There’s more he wants to say, bottled up since he arrived, but his anger evaporates when Shiro looks away, stifling a sob, silent tears running down his cheeks.

“I missed you so much,” he murmurs. “I wanted to look for you, to have you here with me, but the thought that I might be a danger to you, that being with me might kill us both at some point… I couldn’t stand it.”

Keith walks over to the bed and sits down next to him, wrapping both arms around Shiro’s upper body, face pressed into Shiro’s neck. Shiro lowers his head so that he can tug Keith underneath his chin. He returns the embrace, holding him tight.

“I love you too,” he says, belatedly, and Keith shifts, looking up. Their eyes meet, and they both smile. Keith nuzzles at Shiro’s jaw, and Shiro leans down, capturing him in a kiss.

Keith doesn't waste much time; he waited long enough to have this again. He gently pushes Shiro's hand out of his lap, out of the way, and straddles his thighs. Shiro's arms come up to slide along Keith's sides, from his shoulders to his waist, and tug at the hem of his shirt. Smiling, Keith pulls it over his head and throws it on the floor. He dives in for another kiss, quick but deep and saturated with want, before he nudges Shiro so he'll catch up, strip his shirt off as well.

The pale skin and the arm aren't the only changes to Shiro's body; he's buffer than when Keith last saw him, even more muscled than back when he was in the military. It makes sense, Keith guesses: now he's fighting to survive, and he's the only one in their group who had any training for that. And he must have done that a lot, in the last two years, because his chest and arms are littered with new scars.

Letting his fingers dance over a few of those blemishes, Keith leans down to put his forehead to Shiro's. “I love you,” he repeats, as his fingers dance over the ridge of scar tissue where skin meets prosthetic. “I love you.”

Shiro kisses him again, then works his hand between their bodies to undo Keith's pants, inch them down enough so he can stroke Keith through the fabric of his briefs. Keith moans, growing hard under his touch. He bucks into the pressure, but he wants more; he works his clothes down enough so that his erection slips free, and Shiro chuckles, leaning in further to nip at Keith's earlobe as he wraps his hand around Keith's cocks and strokes him in earnest. They breathe together, kissing intermittently, and Keith feels the pleasure build at the base of his spine much too soon. Neither of them have done this in two years; they'll have to regain their old stamina and patience. But for now, this is enough, being close, touching each other's skin, tasting one another.

Keith comes into Shiro's hand and Shiro strokes him through the aftershocks, then lets them both tumble backwards onto the bed.

“Please tell me there's some condoms in the infirmary,” Keith says, breathless, as he watches Shiro wriggle out of his jeans. He gets that; they won't do much else tonight, but he, too, doesn't want to feel any fabric between them tonight. He'll get rid of his own pants and his sullied underwear in a moment. “Because if there aren't any, I _will_ make a supply run to all the gas stations in the area and not return until I've gathered a whole bag full of them.”

“I'll look first thing tomorrow,” Shiro says with a two-eyed wink, because the damn dork still hasn't figured out how to do that properly.

The rest of Shiro's clothes land on the floor, and he makes himself comfortable on his back, one arm raised for Keith to cuddle close. And Keith does, just as soon as he's naked as well. They kiss some more, slower, savoring it, and Keith's hand wanders between them to Shiro's crotch, wrapping around his half-hard dick, using his thumb to rub just underneath the head.

“Want me to return the favor?” he asks.

Shiro moans and buries his head against Keith's neck. He nods, shifting a little to spread his legs, and Keith gets to work.

 

***

 

Keith finds himself rather rudely awakened a few hours later by an ear-splitting screech over the intercom. He shoots up straight in bed, tumbling into Shiro who reacted the same way. They stare at each other, wild-eyed, and Keith reaches for a weapon he doesn’t carry in here – isn’t supposed to _need_ in here.

The intercom button blinks again, and Keith braces himself for another cry for help, for the noise of zombies in the lab, for –

“Guys, guys, guys, we have _immunized mice_ ,” he hears Matt’s voice say, followed by a noise that’s clearly a smacking kiss, which is then followed by Pidge’s giggles. Keith hasn’t heard Pidge giggle since they left for New York before the outbreak. He never thought he’d hear it again.

“We are gonna _save the world_ ,” she sing-songs, and the next sound coming through the intercom sounds suspiciously like two sets of dancing feet.

Shiro nudges Keith, already reaching for his discarded underwear. “Come on. I have to see this.”

They get dressed in a hurry in nothing other than underwear and t-shirts, and head for the lab. Allura and Coran are already there, the former wrapped in a hastily thrown-on lap coat that still allows glimpses at the flowing nightdress underneath, the latter wearing a striped pajama that might have been last sold in the late eighties.

The grinning Holt siblings stand over a box with five white mice, one with a red dot on its head, its once black eyes clouded over with grey, constantly chittering and chasing after the other four, its attempts to get to them thwarted by a transparent plastic wall. Those other four mice, wearing blue dots, are huddled in a corner, little tails entangled, all of them wearing multiple bite wounds. But their eyes remain clear, and they’re not attacking one another.

“How long has it been?” Shiro asks, eyes bright, gaze flickering back and forth between the Holts and the mice.

Matt straightens up, grinning so wide Keith gets a little worried his face might split, and Pidge hugs him from behind as he calls up a recorded video of the two of them on his work station and swipes it to a large screen to their left. “Neither of us could sleep, so we first played a round of Connect Four on hour tablets and then – “

“Maaaaaaaaaaaatt,” Pidge cuts in. “They don’t care about the kids games you got stashed away in your quarters.”

“Right,” says Matt. He pushes his glasses further up his nose and continues. “Okay, so, we got bored of that and decided to prepone the experiment with the mice. We set this up, and let an infected mouse in with the rest. They got bitten, and so on, etcetera, and we waited. And waited some more. _And nothing happened._ ”

He points to the time stamp on the video. It says 1:22 AM. Right now it’s about 4:30 in the morning.

“Three hours,” Allura says, her voice disbelieving, reverent. _Happy._. “And they haven’t turned yet?”

Matt makes a grand sweeping gesture at the glass box. “Nope. All just plain old mice, scared and a bit worse for the wear but neither dead nor undead.”

Keith glances questioningly at Shiro, who nods at him, then reaches for his hand and entwines their fingers. “Yes. That means we have a working vaccine,” Shiro says. He winks at Pidge, then beams at Matt, Allura and Coran. “And we might, indeed, save the world. “

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/spacenerdz).


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